This is Enzo from Pinball Collective Australia, and you're listening to Don's Pinball Podcast. Yes, we are Enzo, back once again, episode 183. I'm back from Florida. I'm back from TPF. I'm back to talk about everything currently going on in pinball. It is absolute madness right now. Can you feel it? Impending releases on top of the gold that's out now? Let's chat. I could listen to that Scott Danesi intro all day long. What's up, everybody? Happy Tuesday. Happy 1st of April. No April Fool's jokes for me. That's the joke. But, man, there was some good ones today. I like that Phantom Till was taking over Haggis Pinball. Hilarious. And then we saw the smattering of, you know, fake themes out there. That Curious George was super funny. Masters of the Universe, again, teasing us with, like, the dynamite theme that every 80s kid wants to see made. But no one's going to touch it. Come on, man. Even American Pinball. Somebody's got this, man. I want my Skeletor multiball, man. Imagine if there was a Prince Adam version and then a Skeletor version. and like that was the one to get all purple with Snake Mountain. Man, I love it. Maybe it'll see the light of day somewhere. I'm sitting here in my game room, and I'm surrounded by like the best of pinball currently. The best new pinball. I'm looking at Avatar right now. I'm sure there'll be a shout-out or something during this recording session. Dungeons and Dragons is behind me. The gem of the Texas Pinball Festival, according to me, Evil Dead right over here, still having fun on that game, and all these games still have code. There was a code update on D&D already, and we're still not even close to 1.0, man. I love it. I love it. And I feel good knowing that Evil Dead's code is going to mature into phenomenal status. D&D will continue to mature, and John Wick, well, John Wick doesn't live here anymore, so we don't even have to worry about that. Oh, sad to John Wick fans. But I'm inundated with the best of pinball right now. I've got enough pinball to last me years until I fully explored everything. But we're about to get even more new titles dumped on us. And it might be even better than what we have sitting here, man. Round two for 2025 is right around the corner. I can't wait. I can't wait. Despite that, there's all kinds of other reasons to celebrate being in pinball at this moment in time on planet Earth in whatever tangent from the sun we are currently in, whatever radian we are occupying, it's currently the place to be, man. Check out Flipside's podcast with Retro Ralph. Yeah, Jamie from Wormhole on there. Phenomenal, dude. The guys went for like two hours. I was driving all over Central Florida just a couple of days ago. Put that in my car stereo. Phenomenal. Thanks for the shout-outs, guys. Huge fans of WAP. I love it. I love that people are getting it, you know, what me and Jenga's are trying to do. We're just having fun in pinball, not taking it too seriously. And really, I wanted to start a show and use the WAP acronym just so there was an excuse for people to walk around a pinball show and wear a WAP shirt, and dang it if it ain't happening, and it's super awesome. Shipping out another WAP shirt today. If you want to get one, donspinballpodcastgmail.com. We are pinball69 at gmail.com. Don of the magic at gmail.com, and you can get at me on the Theme Park channel, and I'll get you a WAP shirt, $25, shipped anywhere in the world. I don't care where you live, under a rock in Alaska or in Greenland about to be annexed, wherever you're at, if you want a WAP shirt, you can get one to shout out to them. Gotta take a moment and shout out my buddy John Cox. Josh Cox. John, oh my God. Velvet Steve is how I know him. He just sent me this mod he made for Texas Chainsaw Massacre to replace that door that just gets bashed to crap with like a cut metal one. And it's engraved with WAP on the back with a personal message in it and a severed finger that I can stick somewhere. So that is awesome. So shout out to you, Mr. Velvet Steve. Josh Cox. What a guy. What a freaking legend. Also, I was walking around, of all places, Universal Studios Florida the other day, just before a rainstorm, and I got my pinball Rizzler shirt on that I made as a joke. It cracks me up. I've got to make more of those. And some dude walks up to me, right? And he's just like, I love your shirt. And I'm looking down like, wait, which shirt do I even have on? Why is a random stranger coming up to me at Universal Studios? This dude is a pinball fan, and I had the logo on my shirt, I don't know if he listens or whatever, or just saw pinball and just had to come talk to me. But dude was super friendly, and without missing a beat, he just opened up his phone. He was going through all of these original themes that he says would just be killer for pinball, and like with detailed rule sets. I mean, this was phenomenal. Like I'm walking over to Diagon Alley, and I'm stopped of all places, Universal Studios, by this pinball dude. So shout out to you. I forget your name. I don't even know if he got his name. He just went right to his phone. But among all of the myriad of themes that he had, this one stuck out. And I don't know if I'd call it strictly original. It was Diner 2 colon Help Wanted. And I can't even remember the rest of what he was rattling off there. But I was like, damn it, that needs to be made. In a world where we're seeing Merlin's Arcade and we're about to see probably Dune, Diner 2 Help Wanted is something that I want today. Forget Medieval Madness Remastered. Make 40,000 of those. Not interested. I am interested in Diner 2 Electric Boogaloo. So can we make that happen in Homeboy? If you're listening or someone knows this dude, have them reach out. Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. I've got to send this guy a T-shirt or something for that. Diner 2, colon, help wanted. I want to play this damn thing. Now, I was inundated with pinball at the Texas Pinball Festival. It was phenomenal. I didn't get any sleep the whole time I was there. It was just sun up to sun down nonstop, just madness and mayhem and chaos in the absolute best way. A lot of people didn't make their way out to Texas this year, out to Frisco, and that was probably because there weren't nothing announced for this damn show. Like, this is supposed to be the show. Like, six brand-new games will be here, right? And then, you know, leading up to it, like, there was no announcements of anything new. and then it was like a week or so prior that we saw okay so portal's a thing and it's starting when we first heard about it it was even like there's ndas we can't say what's coming and it's like say what's coming so people will come to this damn show uh we got merlin's arcade revealed like a week beforehand uh we knew evil dead was coming we knew avatar was coming there was tbd from barrels of fun i am fully convinced that they had designs on actually being there with their new game but maybe the sculpt wasn't right, and so they just want to wait until it's right to show up. So at the last minute, those TBDs all became labyrinths, and, you know, Barrels was there having a fun time. I don't even think there was any, like, real seminars to look forward to at TPF. And then, you know, go ahead, steal the show by announcing Harry Potter, of all things. I still say that should have been shouted out like, everybody, get your pinball rear ends into the conference room for a special announcement from Jersey Jack Pinball. unless of course this was just kind of a spur of the moment like okay I guess we're just talking about that now which seems to be the sense what was missing from TPF though and it felt like half the homebrew games were missing but it felt like something else was missing like where was Ramps I wanted to see you know the bin chicken no the dumpster panda what do they call it raccoon Ramp the raccoon's adventure road trip Ramp's road trip I want to see like what the next evolution of this was. I wanted to play it again. I'm sure other people there wanted to play it as well, and they were nowhere to be seen. They were probably in a garage somewhere in Florida dodging hurricanes, working on getting their game to fruition. Saw it at pinball at the beach, but that was in February. Here we are in March. Nobody wanted to drag the game up from Florida. So Ramps was missing. I was hoping to get some more time on that game and maybe see if there was some iterations and maybe just a smidgen of code. A smidge of code, maybe. Where was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? I know there's games in the U.S. Did they ship them back to Dutchland? I don't think so. Does Cointaker have them? Well, bring one. Bring one, right, to one of the biggest shows of the year. You know, this game sold out, but you want DPX to kind of build that brand, get more people to play it. I'm sure there was people down there in Frisco, Texas, that were not over in Schaumburg, Illinois, at Expo, and got a chance to play that. Heck, even if you were at Expo, the lines were so dang long, for those games. There was three of them, and there's three of them in the U.S. somewhere. They should at least be regional. Keep one in Texas, keep one in Chicago, keep one in Pennsylvania and Northeast so they can show up at these shows. But, yeah, that was nowhere to be found. And, for sure, that should have been there. So that was a little weird. Home Pin had Blues Brothers, of all things, there at the show. There was an ABBA at the show, the precursor to Predator. And, you know, even American Pinball wasn't there, but every one of their games was. So where the heck was Alice, man? You know, the game sold out, and now we don't get to play it anymore? What the heck, dude? I want to play some more Alice. Maybe see if they've adjusted that flipper strength. Maybe see if the ball eject is a little bit stronger. Maybe they fixed that alignment issue so it wasn't just straight down the middle every time. Who knows? Who knows, man? There wasn't even a Magic Girl, right? This is one of the marquee shows of the year. This is where you bring out all that weird stuff, man. There was two black and white Addams families, and there was, like, no Magic Girl this time. I don't know, man. just seemed like a bit of an off year. And if this is the trend that's going to continue, it's like $600 for me to go to this show even. And that's with being able to get a homie hookup on a wristband. That's hotels. That's Spirit Airline flights. That's rental cars. That's Wiener Stitzel budget. There's a lot that takes financially from me to just attend to go play these things, right? Not just the cost of entry. That's the cheapest part of the whole trip. you know but if i'm going to shell that out again you know it really has to be some magic there and i think i wasn't alone in seeing that and no big reveals there weren't six brand new games that were there there was no keynote that you had to be there for like the broad reveal none of that man so like that was missing and it's like sinking in now still fun still a super fun show i mean if you're driving distance of course go to this thing but i think coming up to next year if i'm not hearing that there's going to be some awesome stuff there. I might just hang back and wait, you know, because we've got MGC coming up. We've got Pintastic coming up. Like, there's lots of other shows. Speaking of which, I'll be over at Pintastic for the very first time, I think, this weekend. MGC is also going on this weekend. Barrels is going to drop a new game sometime this month. So there's a lot of things to look forward to. So I thought, why not just pull slack, pull back, retract, and let's take a 30,000 foot or at least 29,500 foot view of what's going on in the pinball world as far as like new releases that are impending and some stuff to talk about. So I made myself a list as one does. We'll talk about Stern, JJP, Spooky, Barrels, Turner, a little bit of Multimorphic there at the end as well. So let's saddle up and get in. Are you halfway through your commute yet? Did you even leave the garage yet? Make sure you open that door so you don't get any carbon monoxide poisoning. And let's jump into Stern Pinball. Big daddy. Big news. Big shakeups. Big rumors. Big game about the drop. I'm hearing confirmation that somebody saw King Kong. At least I think somebody works making, I don't know, print, translates, banners, something, something. Someone's friend told someone's friend that told me that they saw either this cabinet art or a back glass or something. But it is King Kong, right? Not just Kong. Okay. And it looks to be in that old-style font, like from the 1930s or whatever, maybe 1940s Kong. But King Kong, big block letters is what I was hearing, so we'll see if that's even real. But it's coming. Kong is coming. When is it coming? Not this week, apparently, because we would have seen something. So really, any day now, any week now? Don, it's April. When are we going to see it? Are we going to see it in April? I think we're probably it should be slotted in to the same slot that John Wick was one year ago right that was a May late May June reveal and then it was into production in July I think I was in the factory playing it in June so somewhere around there so that should be the slot right so I think if they're following you know their typical pattern this would be like a late May reveal or teaser and then an early June like here's the whole game come down in terium and play it media folks come on into the streaming lounge and come play it. Ace Goge somehow has one early, you know, and then production starts later in June into July and then premiums are hitting everybody by like the 4th of July, right? By the time your summer barbecue is going on, you got your summer release, you're a blockbuster. You're King Kong. It's going to sell crazily good. It's going to be an Elwynn layout. Will it be his best? Who knows? But man, stiff competition with Godzilla and Jaws. Those are my two favorite Elwynns. Not that any of the other ones that he's made are bad, man. They're all great. Jurassic Park is not my favorite but it's somebody's favorite out there and it still a fantastic game it just Jaws is so much dang better oh my god so it be at least awesome Can wait It hasn been a bad L1 So we all looking forward to that Narrow body game or standard body game. Multiple playfields, who knows? Haven't heard anything, but I love what the man does with wire forms. I love what the man does with like those mid play field, you know, meandering shots. And I love just hitting that spinner both ways on Jaws. It was just phenomenal. And if you ever got the four spinner award on Bond 60th, It's just magic, man. You hit two of those spinners on that wandering figure eight loop on the left, and you hit the hat and then the other spinner, and then, like, everything's going crazy. You get the achievement. I've done it one time. It was fun. And that's a single level game. There's no ramps in that at all. So if we do monkeys and ramps and a jungle and the myth of Terror Island or whatever it is, I think it's going to be tearing up. Who's working on the software? I know it's not Tim Sexton because he's out of Stern. This came through A Paris pinball fan My homie in France Posted this in French today Is where I saw it And then it soon spread all around the internet That Tim Sexton's been out at Stern for like Like a while now I haven't been following his YouTube channel I know he did like something about feet Something about nutrition It's kind of all over the place And I love bizarre content So I really need to get back into some nice Tim Sexton there But apparently the guy's out from Stern Dude, the dude that did the dude that did wick dirty is that that's a bit harsh that's a bit harsh um you know maybe he the code for wick got uh suspended because he was gone maybe that's been the whole thing i don't know how long he's been gone for but according to linkedin uh he's got his butt over still in chicago but with play mechanics the dude's behind uh pulp fiction and rumored to be behind halo and he's working with the group over there so okay maybe we can cut old timbo a little slack on the wick code because maybe he ain't been there for a long time i don't know but i'll give him a benefit of the doubt there he's always been cool to me uh a nice guy great mustache and you know pinball needs great mustaches um so yeah so he's out so that's the big news there there's a rumor that stern's doing layoffs who is soon stern gonna lay off right they got assembly line people but if they if they're making machines they need them um they do have a lot of designers they are coming out with a lot of games. Maybe they're looking at pulling that back or consolidating or using people in a different manner. Maybe they're going to go the Disney route and say, you know what, you full timers, we're going to end that contract and hire you back on a contractual basis. Maybe they do that already. I have no idea. Apparently they have some new marketing guy as well. I don't know. I don't follow the business and admin side of this so much just because I kind of lose interest. My eyes glaze over and then I quit retaining knowledge on it. I want to see flashy games. I want to see the games. I want to talk to the developers of the games once I know them. And I want to try to, you know, see what's coming next from them. I like to follow the market as far as prices and what's happening and accessories and all that business, because like, I have the attention span for that. The business and the layoffs and the overhead and my eyes are already glazed over, and I'm the one talking and I'm already running out of stuff to say about that. So I'll leave that to some other folks to cover. I do find it interesting. I just, I'm not interested enough to try to make my brain process all what's going on. So, we're going to see you this summer, probably pretty soon, King Kong from Stern. Next after that, there's still the Star Wars game that's looming out there, and I've heard some damn rumors that I want to believe about that. But there'll be another remake, I'm sure, at some point. Now, a late summer, like early fall release of a remake would line up perfectly where Metallica Remastered came out last year. And whether that's Lord of the Rings, whether that's Ghostbusters is what I hear the most often. Although Walking Dead is in there too, and what a phenomenal game that is. I would like to see it have a more cohesive art package and maybe some extra code, maybe an extra spinner or something. But Walking Dead is low-key fun, man. Every time I see it, I get a little excited. The cabinet art, atrocious though. It's a grotesque-looking game anyway, so that's fine. But just the AMC logo on the side, kind of bland, especially in the higher-tier level edition. Probably has the worst art. so I would love to see just like somebody say alright hold my beer hold my energy drink let's do some like awesome modern pinball art for this thing and really make it shine remaster the whole thing LCD screen show clips from the shows and like I'm probably in on it at that point because the DMD is not enough to push me over the edge into getting one of these things but a remaster I think that has potential man so looking forward to that probably in the fall and then that would line up with a nice holiday release of a Star Wars license, particularly if the rumor is true. Could you just imagine, rumor or no rumor, just a freaking Darth Vader pinball machine, done in the modern way, just black and red intensity, all too easy. Like, either you're battling Vader or you're battling as Vader, and just, like, you know, killing everybody and swinging your lightsaber around. Or if there was, like, a giant lightsaber that could sway across the field. just charge up your saber I'm gathering my dark kyber crystals and just destroy everything I love it rage and intensity and freaking Darth Vader call outs I think that would be a phenomenal game much better than this rumor that it's going to be based on episode 1 of the prequels god kill me now I don't want to play Tatooine the desert adventure let's find the little boy take him from his mama oh goody it's the pod racing multiball I just can't hype myself up around it. Freaking Jar Jar just kills me. But like Darth Vader, just a Darth machine. Like get in his TIE fighter and just start blasting the hell out of rebels. Like, yes, I want that. I want that. Remember, Darth Vader killed the emperor, man. So just come on, freeze everybody. And Carbonite, we're using force powers. We're throwing stuff around the play field. Dude, bring me that thing. Yeah, I would love that. So hopefully that rumor exists somewhere. other than if someone was just yanking my chain that was a hell of a yank man I love it man I can't stop thinking about that alright let's go let's go to Jersey Jack pinball Harry Potter's coming next we knew that now we double know that when is it coming I don't know I got some feelers out for as soon as this thing is available to be played by this guy right here I want to try to get in on it so hopefully there's another media day and hopefully I haven't worn out my welcome down there I don't think I did I'm willing to paint myself blue I'm willing to do a lot more to play some pinball As soon as I can see something and talk about it I can't wait Rumors right now, I heard three playfields Three tiers Three tiers of game, a standard Limited of collectors Two upper playfields Three lower playfields The whole game is a lower playfield, I have no idea At this point, I don't really want to speculate I just want to see this thing for the first time I want to see a slick reveal trailer that just takes me through every little feature of the game and shows me some long, slow shots of the entire play field so I can trace out the ball paths and figure out all the stuff. And, you know, I hope there's wonder in here where I can see a mechanism, a ball path, a physical ball lock, a play field, upper, lower, sideways, whatever, where I get to wonder, like, okay, how do I interact with that? What do I have to do to get there? Does this unlock this way? like, I want that wonder. I want that magic. And I want to see this game. So I'm fine if they just say, you know, this is our next game. We're going to show it on this date and then nothing comes out. There's no leaks. There's no potato cams until we get the good reveal. Or, you know, throw an event, man. Put a tent in the parking lot. Invite everybody and just, you know, do a, not a rug pull, but like a sheet pull. Just, you know, drop the curtain and be like, this is it. We have five of them here. Come up and look around them and then get in line because we're going to play. Maybe you can put your name down in a reservation, and then you can go and have some snacks. You can go and talk to creators, look over a play field of a non-working model, watch other people playing it, and then they'll call you when it's your time to go beyond the velvet rope and just have some nice quiet time, put your headphones on, and experience the game, not in a four-player game, but just a single player. So you get through your game, and then it's time for the next person. They call the next number, and then you go back to the soiree and put your name back in the hat for when you get drawn again. And then, you know, give away some trans lights or something. One lucky winner gets $2,000 off the game if they want to purchase it right then and there. And then can take one with them. How fun would that be? Like, make it a whole event for the whole pinball community. Whoever wants to fly out can go. I think that'd be fun. I'd like to get to there eventually. I think the way that we do that is by behaving ourselves during these media events. And then, you know, continue to go. And then, like, reach down and help other people be able to get in on it too. But I think, like, a big fan event to build a lot of hype. and then nobody knows what this game looks like, and then all of a sudden, grand reveal. Get everybody talking. Get those day one sales going. I think at this point, it would only be helpful. What else do I have now? Apparently, Steve Ritchie. What a guy, man. This guy's watch was amazing. Hung out with him for a very brief amount of time at Texas Pinball Festival, which is always a fun thing to do. His Elton John made me want an Elton John machine, so the dude does magic pretty well. I guess he's going to be next up after Potter, But we're like over a year away from that, I'm sure, man. The next 18 months are going to belong to Harry Potter and Jersey Jack Pinball and churning out their games. And, you know, whatever sales of Avatar can go in there and whatever sales of Elton John can jump on the line as well. But I think that's like our next year from JJP. Before we get to whatever the heck he's working on next, what else do we got? What else do we got? Open CE editions. So this rumor regarding the collector's edition of the Harry Potter machine, the machine to own, you know, at this point, looking back, like, look at Godfather. Do you really want the limited version of Godfather where you have to buy that top part? It's still not as good as the CE version or you can buy the lines, but they're still not gold. Man, that gold Godfather machine looks phenomenal. It's got the gold powder coat. It's got the better art. You got the Godfather himself right there on the play field. Everything is like gold chrome. You get the gold lines. You get the good topper. Like, it just looks great. It just looks like a great game. It plays okay, and it costed $15,000. I'm waiting for those prices to come down. At $7,500, I am interested. I don't know if they'll ever get down that low, but the CE is the one to have. I don't even want to mess with the limited. So, for me, on Godfather, CE or nothing. What was their next game? Elton John. I love that Elton John topper with the screens and the projections. yes um i love that dodgers sequined outfit on elton john yes i love that better than the feather boa vegas girl version uh so the ce on elton john is the one that i want it's ce or nothing and again um i like this game i like it about 8 500 and i don't think it'll ever come down that low so i'm passing on it um avatar again for me it was ce or nothing i had to have that topper i wanted the extra uv lights when they do come in they're super fun um and you know the powder coat's cool, but it was really all about that topper and just having the good virgin. So it was CE or nothing for me. This one I jumped on, and I've talked about why. This theme in particular, not because I'm a fan of the movie, not because I'm a fan of the franchise, but I'm a fan of the theme park area, which I just spent a ton of time in just walking around. I waited 85 minutes in the queue by myself for Flight of Passage, which is the huge marquee avatar ride in the world of Pandora, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Walt Disney World in Florida. and it was the day I flew in I went over to the park, walked all around just like, yes, surrounded by just really great theme park theming and then I jumped in this line not because I felt like waiting 90 minutes in a line, but because the line moves fairly quickly so it's not like grueling, but it just takes you through all these great environments on the queue and really sets you up for the ride the ride is so much of it's okay, it's not fantastic it's not a huge dark ride It's not like Pirates of the Caribbean or anything. It's a simulator, and it's okay. It's about 35 seconds too long. My nausea kicks in about through that minute four. But it's fun. It's fun for what it is. But the queue is one of the best ones in theme parks. You start off outside. There's waterfalls. The Hallelujah Mountains are floating above your head. A lot of forced perspective going on. And then you get into the caves, and it slowly starts building in the story. You're starting to see Navi artifacts and paintings and handicrafts that they've made. And then you move indoors to where the RDA has started putting their brutalistic equipment and pathways and concrete around the natural world of Pandora. And then all of a sudden you're inside. It looks like you're outside. It looks like it's dark and everything's bioluminescent. And so you're in that for a little bit. And then you go into the lab where they have one of the avatars in the tank. It's life-size. There's little ferromagnetic liquids and jars doing weird alien stuff, weird Pandora stuff. and all that builds up together until you get into the test chamber and then go in and link and then go on the ride and all that stuff. So just that process of just being in that environment and just slowly moving your way through there, I'm not saying I do that every single time. And, yes, you can pay $20 and skip the line, but it's a good line to wait in. And, you know, it's not fun to wait 90 minutes for anything. But like you know I was going to be doing something for 90 minutes anyway probably just walking around the park so why not do the slow walk through this cool walk through environment that themed to the hilt and was super fun So that was fun for me And that why I got myself an avatar That's why I'm not looking at selling it. I played it again today. It's a long playing game, takes you on an adventure. I can't tell you specifically which mode I'm starting, you know, but I'm starting to recognize the modes. It's all about just getting in that experience. And so that brings me to Harry Potter. I want this game because while I am a fan actually of the films, never read the books, but I do like the lore. You know, I dismissed it as kid stuff at first until I got into it. Warner Brothers just pulled me in with their set dressings of the movies. And then going to the theme park environments at the Universal Parks, just it's top tier theme park entertainment. Immersive places to walk around in. That's what I love. so if this game brings some of that into the home environment and the collector's edition has the cool topper i think that's the one that i want that's the one that i want is it going to be worth the money i gotta see the game first i gotta see it first to know for sure now this collector's edition up until now jersey jack has done the traditional thing of saying you know what we're going to do 1,000 of these they'll never be any more than that maybe we'll only make like 650 and we'll just say that there's a thousand um they're not handed out sequentially i think they just reach into a bag of all of the limited edition numbers and just throw a plaque in each box. And it's like whichever one you get is which one you get. But there may not actually be 1,000. There may not actually be 5,000 in existence of the limited edition and so on. But that's how they've done it. The Rovers now, because Jersey Jack Pinball likes money, they don't really want to limit themselves for a banger theme like this. So I think what they're thinking of doing is saying, you know what, we're not going to have a hard number limit on our collector's editions. but we're going to have a limited time. And so they may say, okay, for the launch period, the next three months or whatever it is, maybe they say six months, maybe it's a year, it's an open edition. Whoever orders one within that time period, that's how many they'll be. And then once all the orders close out, that's it. So if 500 are sold, there's only 500 collector's editions, and it's going to retain extreme value. If 2,500 are ordered, then there'll be 2,500 collector's editions, and they're not going to hold as much value because that's a lot of games. But whoever who's going to hold the value is going to be Jersey Jack if they get that many orders. So it's really going to be market sets, the addition size. And so is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I'll tell you this. It will be exactly right for the demand in the market because how can it not be? You know, the market will buy however many the market will support and however many the market says this is the number you should make. and then they close the doors and like that's it. It's a novel approach. It definitely would not work on every game because I'm sure they still have Elton John's CEs they would like to build and sell in the future. But for Harry Potter, which like the game to beat, if it's good, if it's dog excrement, then all bets are off. But if this game truly is like the magical game we're all hoping it's going to be, I think that would be the right way to do it because that's letting the market decide. and the market's going to say it's worth this many numbers and not one more because there won't be any more orders. So there you go. So is that good? Is that bad? It's leaving it up to the market. So I would think if you're the free market kind of guy, it would seem to be the right way to go. How do I feel about it? I don't know. I want to see the game, though. I want to see the game. I want to play the game. And thankfully, I don't think we're going to have to wait eight months to do that. So, yeah, by Expo, for sure. By Pentastic, no. by what's coming up, that Allentown show, Pinfest? Maybe? We'll see. I don't know. I can't speculate at this point. I just want to wait, and I want to see the game. I love where Jersey Jack is going now after the disappointing price hike with Toy Story and the lackluster gameplay of Godfather, even though it looked phenomenal. I'm glad to see them back. Elton John, big step. Avatar for me, big step. Let's go. Let's go. This is the time for Harry Potter. This is the moment. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's make the best game ever. Hopefully. Hopefully. What are those boys in Benton doing Down at Spooky Pinball They've kicked up their production of Evil Dead now They've gone through the first 50 60 or so games now And so they're starting to ramp up their production I think they're looking at like 40 to 50 games a month In boxes That would give them, let's see, in 6 months That would be 600 games plus the 50 to 80 They've made now So yeah, I think that's right So by November or so they should be in that last 10% of production. That's when they should be releasing and getting deposits on their next game. And their whole strategy is to keep the factory line busy enough that everybody's got a job, everybody's got money until that holiday break that they give their employees. And so it seems like that's kind of what they're doing. So I like that the production is kicking up. I like that I haven't had knock on wood, any issues with Evil Dead. I like the mods that are coming out soon. Working with a guy right now that's doing a fully sculpted cabin that every time he sends me an update, it's mind-bogglingly awesome. I was expecting four 3D printed sides and a little roof to throw on top, but this thing is like a hand-painted sculpture, man. It's looking phenomenal. So we're doing some test fitting. I printed up the new bench, the swinging front porch swing bench that's more accurate to the movie. I'm going to go find a way to rejigger it onto the game here, send him some feedback for the next iteration, but that is on the horizon, and so is everybody getting their evil dead. I feel like such a jerk because I've had my game for a while, but I put in the work, man, and weaseled my way into the early list somehow, some way. I don't know. Maybe someone messed up and I got on there by accident. Either way, I'm loving it. I want to stay there. Spooky, I got you guys a subscription for your games now, and I'll find somewhere to put them because I love the passion and how it translates into what's going into this game. I haven't heard a bad thing about this game from anybody. So it's not just me being a shill. Game is legitimately good. And yeah, Portal did have longer lines at Expo. Portal also had three games and a longer-ish playing game. There were 10 Evil Deads on the floor and each one of them had somebody at it the entire time. Like a game was never empty for more than two minutes and then someone walked up there. So whatever. Whatever game you think was game of the show at TPF, you're right. Because it's all kind of subjective anyway. but damn this game why it's come on wide body full of everything you've seen it go play it uh more people are getting to play it mgc is coming up this weekend pentastics the weekend after that and then uh the allentown pin fest is going on and by then if you haven't played evil dead you just haven't looked around hard enough because it's coming everywhere man it's coming everywhere uh nearly sold out i just checked and uh you know this this time during like scooby-doo production There was a lot of deposits that were listed. People were trying to dump on Pinside. I went on Pinside just 10 minutes before I started recording, and there was exactly one advertisement for an Evil Dead for sale for full MSRP, and it's from Pinball Star. Joe's the only person, the only distributor that's got any games left at all. You cannot buy direct from Spooky. You have to go in for whatever he has remaining of his 25. And I want to say he's got like 10 to 15 left probably. I haven't heard from him since TPF there, but I know even after he bought his 25, he was already selling those to people at the show. So, you know, game's selling pretty well. It'll be sold out maybe towards the end of the run when we get ready to see their next game. Maybe then some people might try to back out of their deposits. So if you want to wait and risk it, there is a chance you might save $500 or so. But I don't think you'll be saving $2,000 waiting that long because the game's popular and people are going to want to have it. And there's a lot of game in there. I'm going to go pop off and play it here a little bit. So, yeah. So, demand is good. They're doing great. They're super happy. I can hear them celebrating from here almost. So, yeah. Spooky is doing okay. Spooky is doing okay. And from what people that have seen their next game or theme, it's going to be even better. So, I'm excited. I'm excited. Barrels of Fun. I've got to mention this. If you own a labyrinth, either new or you bought my old one, go ahead and register it with Barrels of Fun now because you have 30 days to be entered for a chance to win their next released game, which it'll be like any time now. Maybe by the end of the month even. So if you've got your Stinky Prince on a labyrinth or you're operating one on location, go ahead and go online and register that for free now. there's uh i don't know like a thousand and twenty or so or thousand fifty whatever uh labyrinths that they've actually are going to be in existence they're doing the final run of them right now um you know so that's a one in one thousand chance of like getting a free game just for doing nothing else other than already owning the game uh say 80 of the people actually go through with that then one in 800 a little bit better chance uh maybe not as good as one of the the the pinball charity raffles, but still, hey, it's free, man. It's free, so get in on that. So that's exciting. I like that they're doing that. They're positioning themselves within this crowded market of pinball production people as targeting the collectors. What are all the things we can put into this game so that somebody can get it and they don't really have to do anything to it? I'm taking Stern Premiums and I'm yanking the speakers out, I'm yanking the speaker panels off, the coin doors, taking things from Powder Coat, doing the armor, doing the lockdown bar, putting mods in the game. I've got to put a shaker motor in there. You've got to get Invisiglass. You've got to get a shooter rod. All this stuff you have to do to it. They're looking at putting all that in there. And so now it looks like they've got themselves a shaker motor that's going to be in the game. They're doing some teasing. They said today, April 1st, a weird day to do it, but they said that a new beast is being released. Maybe it's like kind of a tie-in or a little jab at the forthcoming beast from Stern Pinball. So it's kind of funny. But they're calling it Thunder from Down Under, which is the name of an all-male dance review show in Las Vegas. And I'm sure they franchise it other places, too. And so that's what immediately crept to mind was the Australia's Thunder from Down Under all-male review Vegas show. So I don't think that's their next theme. And I think it's just David David Van Es himself is from Australia, Adelaide, I think. So I think that's where it came from. So kind of funny, their Thundershaker. So yeah, so that'll be coming with the game And the good version will have a shooter rod I think they only did one version The relic version of Labyrinth So, oh that didn't come with a shooter rod That was an extra purchase But it was available You did get a back glass And there was an alternate one available Topper was a little bit extra But remember the base game was 10-6 Which is on the lower end for a high end edition So not too terrible And then once you add the topper and the shooter rod and stuff and you come in at like $11,000 or $12,000. And that's where we're seeing these machines, target deck collectors kind of being outside of Stern Pinball, which is $13,000 and doesn't come with a chopper or in most cases a shooter rod. And even Jersey Jack, which is fully loaded at their CE level, it's $15,000. So they're baking some value in there too. I do like that. What I don't know is am I going to like the next game because I haven't seen it. I've heard rumors from Dune to Goonies. So at this point, I'm just waiting to see the damn thing. fortunately I think we're not going to have to wait too much longer they may be the next ones to drop so keep your eyes peeled for that get yourself a free game and that's about all I know about barrels right now very tight lipped haven't seen anything leak out I haven't seen any pictures or any descriptions of are there how many wire forms there are are there multiple playfields is it just one nothing man nothing so good job on holding tight there it truly will be a reveal whenever this thing does drop, which I think may be soon. Turner Pinball had a new game at CPF. We talked about Merlin. Merlin wasn't a completely new game, and not just because it looks like 8-Ball Deluxe. So back in the Deep Root days, I remember there being, like, I don't know, 12 to 15 or so titles that were, like, listed in production. Robert Mueller's talking about everybody who makes pinball stupid except him. he's got this like octo manufacturing system where there's like eight different stations and it's like yeah it's kind of how every pinball company operates there's different stations for different stuff but what he was reinventing the wheel and everybody else was dumb except him you know the story uh by now and so we got all these titles right and so looking through them and looking through those back in the day it was like all right i see a lot of titles here i'm not really excited about any of them. We saw oh gosh, who made Puny Factory? Pinball Adventures also came out and said these are the eight machines we're making. They didn't release what order they were going to make them. Sushi Madness was supposed to be the next one. They have a commercial airline themed one called First Class and I was really looking forward to that. I don't know if we'll ever see it. It was supposed to have a little jet with some motion so it would take off rolls and stuff. I think you could put balls in it. Hopefully that sees the light of day. That was the one I was most excited about. Volt Electric, not too excited. But I saw something similar with these Deep Root games. Like, here's all these fanciful titles, but they're all kind of bland. They didn't, like, inspire passion, right? They weren like licenses I wanted to see The farthest one along was Raza Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland which again I seen the layout of it and it looks I don know kind of dumb Like, I don't know. It's not Circus Voltaire. Let's say that. It looks like a pinball machine. Maybe it's kind of okay, but, like, there was no passion behind it. There was no spice there. It was just kind of bleh. Here you go. This is like, you know, here, chew on this piece of brown leather. That's about as exciting as the game looked to me. And so along comes Chris Turner, Turner Logic, who was working with the group, splintered off and probably was the most successful person to come out of everything on there. Picked up a lot of the rights to these titles at auction and then sold off some of them to the Dutch Pinball folks, which I think is where they got the John Papadiuk design for Alice in Wonderland. Why they got that, I have no idea. I mean, my opinion is clear on that in the past. But now we've seen Merlin's Arcade. And so I went back and I found a NAP Arcade article. It's from March 8, 2022, if you want to go back and look at it. And there's about 20 pictures of prototype games from the fallout of Deep Root back then. And wouldn't you know, I saw a white wood that had the exact same layout as Merlin's Arcade. So this is the game from that whole debacle back there. Ninja Eclipse was an original design. I remember talking with Chris back then. He said, while I have the rights and the layouts to the Deep Root assets, I didn't want to lead off with that because I didn't want people to think it was just Deep Root 2.0. Point taken. But here we are with Merlin's Arcade. And I think it's a phenomenal version of that Whitewood, but I still think that Whitewood doesn't inspire a lot of passion. And I kind of, you know, while the game was fun to play, it's pretty simple. And it's priced at the same price as like Jaws Premium, right, like head-to-head. And so while it is fun to play, and it's probably a really great version of that layout specifically, I don't see how it competes with what we have for the same price. Once you start asking for price, that's where people can become legitimately critical and say, well, wait a minute, $9,000, I get this powder coat and it comes with a topper and all that business, but it's not Jaws, man. It doesn't have the soul of that license. It's not like Iron Maiden. It's not Deadpool, right? So you kind of have to judge it based on that, you know, when you ask for that price. You know, you ask for $6,500 and you get the good version with the sculpts and stuff. Okay, that's a different story. However, I don't think you'd be making any. You'd probably be losing money at that point. So, you know, it's not really worth battling around. It is fun to play. I do like the sound effects and things. I've covered it before. But are we going to see Turner pinball? I need to call Chris and find out. And he's a little cagey about future plans and things. But, yeah, I really would like him to get some good feedback on, is the plan to just be like, okay, I've got these seven Deep Root licenses left. We'll come out with one of these every year. Like, I don't want to see Raza, really. It doesn't look that great. Maybe it plays all right, but, like, I'm not going to get passionate about that. And with everybody that lost money from that shyster, like, I'd feel dirty even if it was a fantastic layout of getting it, right? I don't want to get this game and then my friends come over and look at it like it's a Cybertruck in my driveway. Am I right? You know, so I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know what's going to happen. So back to the Snap article. I was going through there again, looking at these 20 photos, and there it is. I saw a photo of the layout of Food Truck. I've seen this before, but it's still available on the Internet to go check out. Food Truck actually looks pretty fun. So I would hope that something like Barry Osler designed game would come out, and that would be something that would be interesting to see. Food Truck original theme, and if you were to ask me on the wheel of themes, I would think it's stupid, but the layout looked kind of fun. The one that I saw before I had seen some closer-up high-resolution or higher-resolution pictures, there's this little kind of up-ramp to an upper play field, and there's these three stand-up targets, and they're dressed up to look like a soda fountain, you know, so you could hit, like, the cola, the root beer, and the orange or something, like custom-mixed drinks. I thought that was an interesting concept. I thought the concept of the fry basket, where you could throw two balls in it, and it would lower down to lock, I thought that was kind of fun. So, like, while it is kind of a weird gimmicky original theme, it had some fun looking stuff in it. You know, it had Albert Playfield. It had the soda fountain stand-up targets. You know, it had the fry basket to put balls in. Like, all the things that I wish a game like Barrio's Barbecue Challenge would have had, right? You know, Barrio's Barbecue Challenge didn't have a smoker up there that you could lock balls into for, like, the smoker exposure multiball. That would have been something. There really is not much to that game at all. and so food truck looked like it looked like barrio's barbecue challenge but with fun things to do in it and so i would like to see that game right next to it was the white wood for goonies was deep root the company that had the goonies license or were they just banking off being able to tie up the licensing later on or was the whole thing a shell game anyway it doesn't matter there's an upper play field in the back that has the scales right remember like the like the libra or the scales of justice, covered with gold coins from that point in the film where they finally get into One-Eye Willie's pirate ship, and there's the treasure back there, the rich stuff that the kids were looking for, and then there's the balance scales, and it trips into a booby trap or something. And so these scales are there at the end of the upper play field, so the ball can roll off that play field and load into one, and then can go and load into the other one, and then they'd probably drop off for a multiball experience. So that is on there. There's a lower play field as well. So go check this out. it's a nap arcade article from March 8th, 2022. And there's all these pictures on there. And there's the Goonies play field. There's food truck. Uh, Raza is there. And then the white wood for Merlin's arcade is there too, with the giant spinner that turned out to be utilized as a foosball player. Um, it's all in there, man. It's all there. And then from back back then, you know, and so is that where we're, if, if that's what we're going to see from Turner pinball, I would like to see food truck before I would like to see Raza. And I would like to see Goonies. And if he has access to that Goonies and license is still something valid, man, get that out. That's something to get excited about. So, like, I'm solidly in Chris's corner here. I like his games. I like the technology that's in his cabinet, you know. I just want to see something I can get hype about, right, something I can bring home and people are like, oh, my God, you got one of those? I'm on my way over. Can I borrow that? I'll trade you this dialed in for a month. Let me have that game for a month. Like, that's what I want, right, you know, something cool, something that inspires some passion is what I would like to see from the Turner. So that's interesting. Go check that out. Also interesting, P3 Multimorphic, Portal, well-received. Probably, I would say most definitely, the best of the modules. Yeah, for sure, for sure, best of the modules. And I emailed Jerry the other day when I got back from TPF, or when I got to Florida and got some time, and I thanked him for bringing the games that we all got to play. I got to play Portal five or six times. the extended version each time. So I thanked him for bringing those and all the rest of the game so, you know, we could play them. And I told him that, you know, of everybody out there, I think his last three license themes that he's done are probably my favorite of any company out there, right? You know, not every company is going to release something that hits every single time. But think about it. His last three licenses, for me, I dig them, man. I dig them. I'm talking about Weird Al. I'm talking about Princess Bride. Yes, for me personally, family grew up watching that film. I can quote the whole thing. So I love that gameplay-wise, you know, my thoughts on it. And Portal, like I just played it through it again last night, and I still like that game. I like that environment. So, like, I'm down, man. And as far as, like, the P3 system, I do like it. It's not that I hate it. But, again, when you start asking for money, that's where you invite the criticality, you know, of the end consumer. You know, you're, okay, you made this cool game. Yes, it's fun to play, but now you're asking me for a lot of money, and you're asking me for a lot more than my level of exuberance for this product. Now I'm going to be really critical, and the more you increase that price farther from my comfort zone, the more critical I'm going to be, right? And so that's kind of where I'm at. I like the system. I like the idea behind it. I love the technology. The price that they're asking is much more than I would put on it as far as personal value, and so that's when I lean into being really critical like man why don't you just drop this into a regular cabinet, get rid of the laser field thing, drop the price down and then I can have a traditional pinball experience with better feeling flippers and a good cabinet or whatever but definitely, definitely I think it's their best module and the game was fun to play and I want to play it more but I don't want to pay what they're asking to get it so that's kind of where I'm at but your mood may differ and I'm sure if you've already got this system you've already ordered this game so who cares what don thinks anyway well um i have a meeting with jerry tomorrow uh we're gonna chat over zoom here a little post tpf wrap up um he wanted to talk uh during the last part of the tpf show uh when i went over there he seemed to be a little busy every time so i don't want to disturb this guy i mean he's running his business what the heck do i need to intervene on that for uh but he wanted to chat and so i said sure so we're gonna do that tomorrow and we'll see what kind of fallout happens from that. I almost feel like I'm getting called into HR, man. It's like, oh, gosh. And I'm thinking, like, do I just want to quit my job and not even worry about it? But maybe it'll be good things. I don't know. I'll tell you this. I bought myself two Portal t-shirts, one for myself because I like that Brad Brad Albright art. I like the theme of Portal, and I like baby blue t-shirts, and so this is hitting on, like, all three of my interests. And so through the magic of buying two of them, I'm offering a giveaway that'll probably be either later this week or next week. Watch for that. It'll be on the YouTube channel, I have a virtual pinball machine that, wouldn't you know it, happens to have a Portal game in it already. So I thought, why don't I live stream the Portal game, and we'll give away the other extra large, baby blue, Brad Brad Albright designed Portal shirt that I bought. And so we'll give that away to somebody, including shipping worldwide. So watch for an announcement. I'll announce it on the Facebook page when it'll be. And I'll either do, you know, just send me an email, register for this thing. Maybe I'll give you a week of heads up, and then we'll draw the winner during the live stream. Or if I can think of a trivia question and we can get enough people watching and engaged, then we can do a live giveaway. Maybe I'll do both. But I would like to, I think, pre-register for the t-shirt giveaway, and then maybe I can give away something else live for the people that are watching live. Maybe that'll be fun. The hard part for me is committing to a specific time in the future where the live stream is going to happen because life happens between now and setting up a live stream, and so I can't always meet that. and sometimes it's like now or never here's an hour notice we're going live and then it's not fair to people that otherwise would tune in so uh we'll see um either way it's always a good idea to follow and like the facebook page and the youtube channel for don spinball podcast the live streams are moving over to youtube because they disappear off of facebook now you can't just keep them in perpetuity uh used to be that they would auto default to 30 days and then they would drop off but there was a thing where you could click and say no just keep it up there forever Let it live. If people want to go back through live streams, they can. Now it autos to, like, there's no option to keep them on there forever. And I think that kind of sucks because sometimes it's fun to go back to those and watch them maybe years later. So YouTube allows that. So that's where I'm going to do the live streams over there. I'll still pop in for the Facebook lives just because they are fun and easy to do. But they don't live forever. So those will just be good for short-lived entertainment options. So what do you guys think about the state of pinball now? We almost pulled a full hour show. How about that? This will take you through most any commute in the country by this point. All right, so if you'd like to get at me, easy way to do that, Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. I'm putting together the Mimic Chest mod for Dungeons & Dragons. So if you've got one and you want a cool Mimic with a flasher cover, with some terrain to replace that plastic as well, get at me. I'm shipping these things for $120, and I'm starting the email list now. The printer is actively going. They're actively in production, and I don't know how long they will be in production for. So if you want to get in on it through no obligation, go ahead and e-mail me, and then when it's ready, I'll e-mail you back. And if you're interested, I'll show you pictures, send some money. I'll ship the damn thing out to you. Add on a T-shirt. Add on some flipper toppers if you want to. We've got all kinds of stuff. Super fun things are going on. If you want a mod for your game that I have, let me know. Based on demand, I'll put it into production. If you've got an idea, bring it to me. We'll make it happen. And if you help me collaborate, you'll probably get it for free as well. And then it can live on as like something for other people if they want. So that email address, donspinballpodcast at gmail.com. If you like theme parks, check out Dawn of the Magic, a new podcast that I just launched. 15 of you have found your way over there. It's over on Spotify. It'll be hitting everywhere else shortly. There's a companion YouTube page for that as well. And as time allows, I'll be able to indulge in some more theme park and roller coaster nonsense. Talk. Hit the music. Oh man, I'm back at home, back in the home studio. It's feeling good, man. And I'm feeling good about the future of pinball and stuff that's going to happen. Not only that, I'm feeling good about the present of pinball. I'm going to go play some Evil Dead, and then probably some Avatar, and then probably some Dungeons & Dragons, and then some Looney Tunes, and then I'm going to get a Diet Coke, and then I'm going to check out my print, and then I'm probably going to watch some YouTube, and then I'm going to bed, and then I'm going to get up and do the whole thing again. Later.